Kitty Bennet's Diary (Pride and Prejudice Chronicles) (23 page)

Lance—or rather, Mr. Dalton—

No.  I am going to give up the struggle and call him Lance.  I will allow myself the (extremely) cold comfort of that. 

Lance sketched a brief, dismissive gesture.  “I was here to intervene—this time.”

A gust of icy wind whipped down the street, rattling the awnings of the street vendors.  I shivered as I acknowledged the truth of his words.  Or rather, the truth of what he had not said.  That we may have prevented Mark harming himself today.  But there is absolutely nothing to guarantee that he will not try again, sometime when we are
not
there to stop him.

Lance’s mouth twisted as he said, “It’s difficult to force a man to live if he does not wish to.”

On the last words, he stumbled slightly, his breath catching.  And looking at him more closely, I saw with a fresh lurch of horror that beneath his greatcoat, the side of his jacket was wet.  He pressed his hand against the stain—and I saw that his fingers came away smeared with fresh blood.

“You’re injured!” I gasped.

Lance shook his head.  “It is nothing.”

“Nothing is when you are
not
bleeding,” I snapped.  “What happened?”  I thought perhaps he must have been injured while climbing through the window.

He had stopped walking and was leaning against the side of the building we had been passing by, his face pale, his eyes pressed briefly shut.  He said, “The shot that Captain Chamberlayne fired—the gun went off when I tried to take it from him.”

“You were
shot
?  And you said nothing?” I demanded.  “Are you an idiot, trying to keep something like that hidden?”

Lance drew a breath—and grimaced—but said, “I did not wish to make Captain Chamberlayne feel any more burdened with guilt than he already might.  And besides, it is just a graze.”

“Where is your own lodging house?” I asked. 

Lance’s eyes jerked open with surprise at that.  “Why?”

“Because it seems to be a choice between allowing you to bleed to death in the street and getting you somewhere where your injury can be attended to,” I said.  I could acknowledge the sense of his reason for keeping silent.  But the combination of worry and tautly-stretched nerves still sharpened my tone.  “And since you said you live but a few streets from here, your rooms seem to be the closest available option.”

Fortunately he
did
live quite nearby—otherwise I do not think I could have contrived to get him home.  He gave me directions through clenched teeth, guiding us to a street that was poor but still respectable, not having yet been dragged down into the lawless misery of Mark’s neighbourhood.  His own lodging house was small and clean-looking, even though the front steps were chipped and the paint was peeling on the door.

The front door was opened to us by a stout, grey-haired woman in a flowered apron, whose eyes narrowed with suspicion at the sight of me.  But when I had hurriedly explained that Mr. Dalton had been injured—I left out how exactly he had come by the hurt—she flew into a bustle of sympathy.

She helped me to support Lance into his own rooms, clucking her tongue and exclaiming all the while. “Oh dear.  Poor Mr. Dalton.   There, didn’t I say he’d come to harm, going into such rough, nasty neighbourhoods as he does?”

All throughout the walk there, Lance had refused to lean on me.  But he was unsteady enough on his feet by that time that he didn’t object as his landlady and I between us deposited him in a chair in front of the hearth in his rooms—which also fortunately were only one flight up, on the first floor.

“Shall I send for a surgeon, miss?”  His landlady asked.

I looked at Lance’s face—which was chalky pale and beaded with perspiration.  But then I shook my head.  I had no idea what sort of surgeon one might find in a neighbourhood like this one.  And besides, I had seen the army surgeons treating the wounded in Brussels.  Their sovereign remedy for everything was to bleed their patients.  Which I suppose must be supposed to do some good, else they would not do it.  But I saw again and again how the men died all the same.

“No, if the pistol ball—  That is,” I said, “I think I can cope with the wound, if it is not too severe.  Mrs. …”

“Poole, miss.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Poole,” I said.  “Do you think you could fetch me some hot water, then?  And brandy or anything else you might have for pain?”

 Mrs. Poole said that of course she would fetch both, and bustled off.

Lance had been leaning back, his head resting against the stiff upholstery of the chair.  But when the door had closed behind his landlady, he opened his eyes and said, “Miss Bennet, you cannot—”

I stopped him.  “Yes, I can.  So long as the ball is not actually lodged inside you, I should be able to cope without trouble.”  I knelt down beside him and reached for the buttons on his shirt.  “Here.  You had better let me take a look at the wound.”

He jerked backwards at my touch—which made him bite back a grunt of pain.  But then he said, after a moment’s pause, “I … I heard what you said to Captain Chamberlayne.  About your having been in Brussels last summer.”  He drew a shaky breath.  “That night at Vauxhall—you were telling the truth when you said that you had treated far worse injuries than bruised knuckles.”

“Yes, well.”  I took off both my bonnet and my gloves and laid them aside.  “I suppose it is fortunate for you that I do have experience with gunshot wounds.  Now either take off your shirt and let me see the wound or I will do it for you.”  I forced a smile.  “At least I can guarantee you that it will not be the worst sight I have ever seen.”

The wound
was
a nasty one, though.  If it had been the first such injury I had seen, I might have been sick.  And as it was, I felt my stomach clench.  The ball was not lodged in the wound, at least.  But it had cut a deep, jagged-edged and bloody furrow in Lance’s side, just under his ribcage.  Dark spots danced before my eyes when I considered how close he had come to being shot through the abdomen.

We all quickly learned last summer that those wounds are the worst of all.  Because they invariably kill, but not straight away.  The victim lingers for days—a week, even—in increasing agony, dying by slow, horrible degrees.  But for the first time, I was almost glad of those memories.  I was glad, at least, of my experience in treating gunshot wounds, since it enabled me to know what to do for Lance.

Mrs. Poole returned with the hot water, clean rags, a bottle of brandy, and a small, darker bottle that she explained was laudanum—left over from her husband who had suffered from ‘rheumatics’ in his back.  And then she left us, assuring me that I had only to call if I needed any further help.  She was rather like a mother hen—clucking and fussing, but clearly very fond of Lance.

I poured a generous glass of the brandy and added a generous measure of the laudanum—which Lance threw back and swallowed in a single gulp.  Though apart from that, he gave no other outward sign of the pain he must have felt.  He sat quite still while I cleaned the wound.  Only when I had begun to wind a clean length of bandage about his ribs did he stiffen.  And then he unclenched his teeth long enough to say, “Miss Bennet, you have been more than kind, but—”

Up until that moment, I had been so entirely focused on taking care of his injury that I had forgotten to feel conscious.  But as he spoke, I realised abruptly that he was sitting before me with his upper body completely bare—and that I had put my arms round his waist in the act of securing the bandage.

I was suddenly and very thoroughly aware of the heat of his skin, the hard ridges of muscle under my fingers, the beating pulse I could see at the base of his throat.  The stir of his breath against my hair.

I swallowed and said, in as practical a manner as I could manage, “I am not leaving you yet, if that is what you are suggesting.”

I may have managed to fall hopelessly in love with him.  But I could at the least avoid behaving like a blushing, stammering schoolgirl in his presence.

Lance shook his head.  I could see that the mixture of laudanum and brandy was beginning to take effect; his blue eyes were growing slightly unfocused.  “It’s scarcely fair to you—”

I interrupted him.  “Someone was recently telling me that I ought to occasionally consider my own needs first.”  I pretended to consider.  “Now, I wonder who that can have been—and whether he ought not to take his own advice.  You ought to have someone to sit with you—to make sure the wound does not open and begin bleeding again, if nothing else.  Now, come along—I suppose that is your bedchamber, through that door?”

I nodded towards the doorway at the back of the room.

Lance exhaled an exasperated sound that was part laugh, part grunt of pain.  But he allowed me to help him to his feet, and together we made our staggering way into the bedroom.  Lance more or less collapsed onto the narrow bed, dragging me down with him.  Which made me conscious all over again of the intimacy of our position, alone in his bedroom—without a soul in the world apart from Mrs. Poole knowing where we were.

I pulled back and said, still trying to speak practically, “Do you want anything to eat?  Or something to drink?”

Even the short walk from the outer room had tired Lance.  His eyes had drifted closed as he leaned back against the pillows, but he shook his head.  “Nothing.  Thank you.”

I drew away from the bed, trying to quiet the racing beat of my own heart, and looked about the room.  It was Spartanly neat and bare.  The furnishings—heavy, old-fashioned furniture and a flowery paper on the walls—must have been Mrs. Poole’s choice.  And Lance seemed to have brought practically nothing of his own to his living quarters.  A few books were stacked on the table beside the bed, their titles seeming to indicate that they were volumes on theology—with some history mixed in.  But apart from them, the rooms might have belonged to anyone at all.

I wandered over to the single personal item that caught my eye: a framed crayon drawing that stood on the big oak dresser.  And then I drew back in surprise.

The drawing was signed by G. Dalton—I assumed that meant it had been done by Lance’s sister.  And the subject was two young men, both seated astride big charger horses, both wearing army uniforms.  One of them looked so much like Lance—only with darker hair—that I knew it had to be his brother.  And the other man in the drawing was Lance himself.

I turned around.  “You were in the army, as well as your brother?” I asked.

Lance nodded.  He looked blearily at the drawing, a furrow appearing between his brows, and exhaled.  “Our father … purchased our commissions together.  That’s when Gwen made that picture.  I was eighteen.  Percy was twenty.  He oughtn’t to have been in the army at all.  He was the heir, and our parents were set against the idea.  He ought to have been home, learning to run the estate.  But he was equally set on joining the army.  It was all he had ever wanted.  To be a soldier.  Ever since we were boys.  And our parents … they could never deny Percy anything he truly wanted.”

I looked again at the drawing.  Gwen was a skilled artist.  She had captured the brothers’ expressions very well.  Lance looked younger—but still sober, grave.  Percy was laughing beside him, his expression open and carefree.  As though he were still a boy, and the officer’s red coat and sash he wore were only a part of all the joyful play.

“Then … were you in Brussels, as well?” I asked.

I was still trying to assimilate this new side to his character.  Though his sister had said that a clergyman was the very last thing she would have expected him to become.  And now that I came to think of it, he did behave far more like a soldier than a man of the church.  When he had halted his runaway team of horses … when he had threatened Lord Henry … and just today, when he had scaled the outside wall to get in through the window and disarm Mark.

Lance shook his head.  “No.  I was in the cavalry.  Percy joined the infantry.  My regiment was posted to join the fighting in the American colonies, just before Napoleon escaped from Elba.  We were recalled, but not in time for us to reach Waterloo.  If I had been—”

He stopped.  And the expression on his face—a kind of still-muscled control that clearly overlay grief and pain—made my heart feel twisted inside my chest.

Without thinking, I crossed to perch beside him on the bed—there was no chair for me to sit on—and put my hand over the top of his.  “If you had been, you might have been the one to die,” I said.

“My mother certainly wishes I had been.”  The words seemed to surprise him, as though he had spoken without first realising what he was going to say.  He shook his head as though trying to clear it.  “Exactly how much of that laudanum did you give me?”

“I may have been a little over-generous,” I admitted.  And perhaps more than just a little, to judge by his already slurring speech and drooping eyes.  He would—with any luck—be asleep soon.

But it was as though pain and weariness and the effects of the drug had combined to break some internal dam.  He turned his head on the pillow to look at me and went on, “It’s entirely true, you know.  About my mother.  Percy was always her favourite.  And he—”  Lance stopped and I saw the muscles of his throat ripple as he swallowed.  “I don’t know whether he truly died of his wounds.  He had been trampled by a horse and had broken ribs that never healed properly—among other injuries.  He had lost an arm, just like Captain Chamberlayne.  His health was very weak.  But there were also days … days when he spoke of wishing to die.”  A brief, bleak smile touched the edges of Lance’s mouth.  “Again, just like Captain Chamberlayne.  And then one morning—” 

He broke off again, and I felt his fingers clench and then deliberately loosen under mine.   “I was the one to find him.  He appeared to have died in his sleep.  But there was a bottle—an empty bottle—beside his bed.  It was a sleeping medication that the apothecary had given him.  A mixture of syrup of poppies.  And Percy had been strongly warned against taking too much.  I never told either Gwen or my mother.  I threw the bottle away.  But I have wondered ever since—”

“No!”  I interrupted him again.  “No, you are wrong.  He would not have taken his own life.”